Skyrim: Noble Two's Journey
by ARC N7
Summary: In 2546 Spartan-III Beta-320 was reported MIA, after Operation Stortebecker. The UNSC Charon-Class Frigate "Bolivar" was hit by a Plasma Torpedo while entering a Slipspace. B-320 was presumed dead and declared MIA. However, she managed to live up to the Spartans' reputation and survived to find herself in a strange world.
1. Chapter 1

With a groan, Kat tried to lift her head. Splintered titanium was stuck in the back of her head and she felt the wounds bleed down her neck. It was hard to remember what happened. She lay on the floor of a bright green forest. She was surrounded by trees and her instincts screamed at her to scan the area for hostile contacts. Ignoring the pain, she stood up, got into firing stance and drew her magnum. Nothing was in sight. She tried to make sense of the proximity sensor to be sure, but the few contacts seemed to be wildlife.

The air was cold and fresh, a far cry from the stale air of UNSC starships.

Kat wasn't all that interested in her environment though...

"How did I get here?", she muttered. It was hard to remember for a moment but then the memory returned, when she saw the radiation warning plate on her wrist. It was tainted almost entirely black. Radiation... Slipspace. The UNSC Bolivar had been an old Charon-Class Frigate. She had tried to repair the failing Slipspace drive. Something had happened...

Kat tried her best to remember and the memory came back. The ship had been hit by an exploding plasma torpedo, just as they had tried to enter slipspace. It had fucked up the drive and things had gone nuts. The overload of the rift had brought the ship way off course and Kat had tried to get the drive to emergency-abort them out of Slipspace. She remembered how the lots of systems had just exploded from the energy overload, crippling the ship. She had thought that would be her end.

Kat was relieved, that she did manage to get the drive to spill the ship back into reality, but the old ship had been ripped apart by the mayhem of random currents in that incredibly crude jump.

"The Drop Pod!", she remembered. Just before the reactor had gone critical, she had made it to the drop pods.

A wave of guilt swept over Kat's outwardly concentrated attitude. She had failed. The Sangheili Marshal they had captured must have died. Beta-Company had lost eight Spartans in that Operation, but they had sucessfully boarded and captured a Supercarrier. Or at least jumped it to a prepared point in interstellar space where multiple Regiments of UNSC-Marines would capture it. HIGHCOM wanted that ship and the Elite-Officer for a future Operation labeled "Red Flag". Kat hoped that the carrier was sufficient. It stung to know that they had failed their goal of perfection. That she had failed. LTC Ambrose had put quite a lot of trust into her and Noble Team by giving them Mjolnir Armor.

There was a more pressing line of thought, however.

Kat knew how she got away, but how was it possible, that there was a planet so conveniently placed and her drop pod ended up in a pefect angle for the landing, steering for a landmass was beyond her.

She wasn't religious, but she didn't have to do any math to figure out, that there was no way this could be coincidence. At least that there was a planet that near. Was this planet supposed to be the evac point for the ship? It just had to be. There was no way she could have this amount of luck without either the very unlikely option of divine intervention or ONI somehow being responsible. Maybe continued interaction with ONI had made her overtly paranoid, but Kat liked to blame everything unexplainable on Margarete Paragonsky.

Focusing her thoughts on the situation again, she holstered her beloved Magnum and flipped on the safety. She had to find out if the planet was harbouring intelligent life. Preferably human, but Kat knew that this would have breached the Cole Protocol. She hated that thought, but the only rational option was, that she was alone. Maybe ONI would send a retrieval team, if the planet actually was the intended destination of the jump.

Kat's drop pod was nearby, stuck in a little pond. She walked up to it and examined the interior. In there were an M392 DMR, a lot of .338 Lapua magazines and an MRE. She still had the simple backpack that she had used to carry around tools and explosives during the raid on the Covenant outpost. Kat only took the MRE and filled the rest of the backpack full of ammo. She didn't know how much she might need and if she could find the pod again. Sattelite connection was completely offline.

It was one of these moments, where she was thankful for the rigorous training regiment of the Spartans. One of the first things for them to learn had been surviving. She would do fine, but hoped ONI wouldn't take too much time searching for the lost ship. If not actually caring for the lives of their pawns, ONI loved their strategic assets and that captured Elite-Officer had been important. Maybe they could pick her up, if she survived long enough groundside. She made sure, there was a beacon active in the pod, after all.

With everything packed up, she thought what direction she should go in. To, (what her compass said was) the North, she saw snow covered mountains. It looked promising. From one of those she might be able to get a better picture of the area.

* * *

By going through the forest, Kat was able to gather some bits of information about the wildlife and she immediately noticed that the planet whe was on obviously contained the traces of human meddling. Most of the trees she saw were native to Earth. On the way, she also spotted a rabbit, wich made the engineered nature of the ecosystem clear. She could already narrow down the options to a little spectrum: The planet was either in the process of being terraformed or already completely made habitable to terran life.

In turn, this opened up the possibility of the planet being already settled. That would mean the Frigate breached Cole Protocol, though and that was out of question. On a mission of strategic importance, there wouldn't be an unreliable Captain assigned to a ship.

It was strange, indeed. Probably the planet wasn't settled yet.

Then she felt something knock against her knee. It was only slight, but Kat heard something plinging.

She looked down and saw that an arrow had bounced off her armor.

Military reflexes were awakened immediately and she threw herself on the ground. Trying to find the source.

Her armor helped a lot with blending into the environment. It was some old German Woodland camo scheme, that the analysts had determined to be best suited for the original mission. It fit into this new forest perfectly.

The other figures in the forest did not have that privilige and Kat silently gasped when she saw a few blue clad warriors with swords cowering behind trees. They were humans.

Kats thoughts started to work overdrive.

Human soldiers in medieval combat gear. They had taken cover and arrows were flying around them. For a moment she thought this was a movie being shot or civilians doing some kind military-themed recreational activity. But she remembered that those arrows were sharp. There was an intent to kill and that invoked a lot of questions.

She saw the attackers shooting their bows from treetops, into the blues. A few had went down and the wounds were real. From this she deduced, that there was genuinely no modern combat gear available for both sides of the skirmish.

Kat quickly fomulated a quick scenario. She was on a UNSC planet, that was settled. There was a civil war going on, but no conventional firearms available, thus forcing the locals to rely on a low-tech solution. That was the only explaination she could come up with, that didn't involve time-travel and the impossibility to end up on medieval earth.

From the fact that no more arrows were shot her way, she guessed that the archers hadn't detected her and the hit had been accidental.

For a moment she considered joining the fight on side of the blues in the hope they were loyalists, but decied against it. She needed more intel before she could reveal herself.

She observed the fight a little longer while lying in the bushes and one by one the blue soldiers died. They lacked ranged weapons and seemed to favour axes, thus they couldn't fight back effectively.

Kat redirected her attention to the motion tracker. There was a contact behind her. A few metres. She rolled onto her back and a sword struck the ground where she lay a second ago.

The trained responses of CQC training kicked in. Kat kicked gold-clad figure from below. She threw the attacker back a meter, then drew her combat knife while jumping into fighting stance. The enemy swung the sword again from the upper right side. She was too tall to duck, thus she used a technique her comrade Emile taught her. Instead of parrying, she threw herself at the unshielded enemy. He couldn't effectively stab her at zero range, so she just grabbed the small swordsman by the waist. She headbutted him hard, then threw him on the ground hard.

She heard something snap behind her.

Another gold-clad figure in elegant armor swung a one-handed sword at Kat and she dodged. The second attacker was off-balance after the missed heavy blow. Noble Two used the moment to simply drive her combat knife into the spine and the carotid artery. Attacker two was dead instantly.

Not wasting time, Kat ran towards the still lying number one and stomped down on his head. She didn't look, but heard the wet squelching sound.

She knelt down again, raised her Magnum in her left hand and scanned the enviroment. Another three golden attackers surrounded her, but didn't attack. It gave Kat a moment to analyse. The faces of the attackers were clearly humanoid, but abnormally angular and the skin had a golden tone. The armor was artistically crafted, but seemed light and valued agility, further emphasized by it's avian design.

For a moment both sides just stared at each other, analyzing. Kat saw the fear in the eyes of her opponents, though. A natural reaction that she as a Spartan was used to. But there was also a lot of curiosity. That was a good sign.

Kat lowered her weapons a bit, hoping for a similiar response by the golden troops. She hoped there was a way to talk to them.

They didn't let their guard down, but Kat was confident she could block anytime, one tried to strike at her.

"Who are you?", she asked in a calm voice.

The attackers didn't answer. All of them attacked at once, but Kat was fast. She dodged the first swing like a russian ballerina, did one step to get behind the poor female soldier and grabbed her by the neck. The second tried to attack her with an axe from behind, but Kat swung number 1 at him like a ragdoll, breaking her neck in the process. Two was thrown off balance, but the time-consuming move by Kat granted enemy number 3 a glancing hit at her armor, when she botched her dodge.

Caught off-guard, Kat threw herself on the ground, back first, and shot the man two times with her Magnum. Gore from the exit-wound sprayed over the grass.

When she had to roll over and jump up again, she cursed her impulse-reaction. She had wasted two bullets on a harmless enemy with a metal sword. However, after fighting a Sangheili Marschal only a few hours ago, she still had the tactics of anti-covenant CQB in mind.

Not wasting time, she bull-rushed number two and killed him by punching him so hard, his skull cracked and splinters destroyed his brain.

At this point, she had become the center of all the attention. The blues were all lying on the ground. Curiously, a few of them weren't dead. Instead, they were dragged away by the soldiers as if they were ragdolls. It took a moment before Kat knew what was going on. They used paralyzing arrows. Probably poison-based. She curiously noticed, that they immediately gagged the man who wore more official clothes than the soldiers around him.

The fighting had come to an end and a literal horde of gold-clad soldiers surrounded her, while Archers in leather armor repositioned and took aim at her.

No one made a move. Everyone was too confused by the situation and Kat knew she had probably made an intimidating impression.

She symbolically and slowly started to holster her Magnum and sheath her knife. The mysterious soldiers didn't follow the example, but did not use the opportunity to attack either.

The standoff was interrupted by a group of riders and a carriage arriving. On the wagon, a group of black-robed warriors sat and immediately disembarked upon arrival and got into cover, aiming strange staffs at Kat. They reminded her of a medieval SWAT-Team. Their choice of equipment was strange, though.

What spiked caught her interest was one of the rider's, though. He was obviously human and he was the last hint Kat needed to remember why the leather clad humans looked so familiar. The rider looked exactly like a roman General.

That was a start. She tried to remember if she knew any sentence in Latin, that made sense in her current context, but failed. Instead, she just stood there. At that point Kat knew she could handle an escalation of the situation, if it happened. They had nothing to penetrate her armor and the only thing they could scratch was her paintjob or pride.

Kat was always very perfectionist in her approach of melee-training. In training, she always couldn't help but remember that if the training knifes that managed to hit her were Plasma Swords, she'd be dead. It was a paranoia that kept her alive through an impressive record of missions.

The other rider was a women. Or at least the golden-skinned humanoid looked female. It was sure by now, that they were a different race. Or at least some kind of heavily evolved or mutated kind of human. Again, questions.

For a moment, they both shot the gagged man in fancy clothes a spiteful, but satisfied look and then directed their full attention at Kat.

She saw them observing her, just like she did them.

With the zoom-mode of her helmet, she had a good view on their faces. 'Goldie', as Kat now labeled the female, seemed straight up hostile. Sneering and judging, but calculating too.

The old man looked more curious and worried. It was obvious who commanded whom. He seemed to be in charge of the Legionaires. While the Commander kept her in sight, he looked around at his subordinates in worry.

Her first impression of him was rather positive. He seemed genuinely worried about the wellbeing of his troops and probably willing to at approach the situation diplomatically. Of course Kat was ready to kill him and already mentally prepared a Plan B, but she had to find a way back to the UNSC and a necessary part of that was initiating constructive contact with the locals. Better now than never.

"Who are you?", asked the officer in fluent english.

Kat thought for a moment. Should she use her real name? It always seemed a bit private to her. From the age of her recruitment into the Spartan-III program, she had always learned it that way. She wasn't even sure if Catherine or Katarina was her real name.

She decided to try.

"Katarina. B-320.", she answered simply. Of course that opened up more questions by the General to be asked, but Kat needed to provoke him into revealing more bits of information, so she could actually form a plan what to do. Improvising based on gut-feelings was a horribly flawed approach.

"You are a soldier. Who do you serve? And don't waste my time with evasions. You are caught alongside wanted Rebels and killed six Altmeri Soldiers. Either your explaination is good or we execute you on the spot."

Well... That worked. At least he was honest.

"Spartan Company Beta. Naval Special Warfare Command. My exact mission is classfied and breach of operational security is punished by immediate execution. I lost orientation in the forest and tried to reach higher ground. Then I took an arrow to the knee and got attacked by unknown soldiers.", she explained, staring at the Roman Officer.

It was obvious he neither believed her, nor was in any way satisfied with the answer. That in itself was a major piece of intel. A Civil War was going on and the UNSC wasn't involved. An alien species was involved and it was on the side of the loyalists.

The scenario just got a lot more complicated. Really, the only possibility she could think of was a lost colony ship crashed on an alien homeworld and technology regressed. Every other altenative, she placed into the "crazy sci-fi wormhole" category of pseudoscientific speculation.

For a moment the officer was lost in thought, but that changed, as soon as Kat saw the incoming danger.

While both had talked the alien women had done something. There was a visisible electric charge building up in her right hand.

Kat tried to avoid it, but even her Spartan Reflexes couldn't save her from that kind of barrage. The electric arc hit her instantly after release and the sheer strenght of the charge eneabled to attack to get through the safety mechanisms of her suit. It was mildly painful, but caused Kat to drop her quickly drawn Magnum in pain. The initial attack was followed up by the robed Alien-SWAT firing what appeared to be arc-rifles from their cover.

This was too much. So much voltage was overloading the systems, the system started to lockdown and Kat fell to the ground. She tried to push herself back up, but another salvo of a dozen arc-charges knocked her out cold.

* * *

"I had the situation under control!", General Tullius snapped at the Elven Ambassador, who was appearently trying to mask her fear with more smugness. "This is an internal Imperial matter."

The Altmer just glared at him both arrogantly and angry.

"This stopped being an exclusively Imperial matter, the moment this monster killed six of my Thalmor Agents.", she sneered. "But I am feeling kind today. The Empire can have the body."

Elenwen turned her horse around and rode to the waiting carriages, but added:

"Let's get these prisoners to... What was is called? Helgen?"

Damn elf knew very well what the name was, but just had to add a petty insult that human culture was beneath her. How much he would love jamming a broadsword in that smug face, he thought while getting off his horse.

"Recruit...", he asked and paused trying to remember the name of the man he was pointing at.

"Tarek, Sir.", explained the Redguard.

"Tarek, get the men to load her on the second carriage. We get those Stormcloak corpses in a second tour.", the General ordered, then grabbed the soldier when he wanted to go.

"And pretend not to notice that she is still alive. As soon as we are in Helgen, I want answers without Thalmor spies breathing down my neck. Store her in a barn or something and shackle her good, when the Elves aren't looking.", he whispered.

The soldier looked taken aback, but didn't mind screwing over the Elves in the slightest.

"How do you know she lives, Sir?", he asked quietly.

"I've seen her twitching. Either she is pretenting to be dead and listening, or she'll have the common sense to play dead until she has an opportunity to escape.", he explained and signaled the soldier to get a few more men. The armor was obviously heavy and up-close Tullius saw that it was sealed perfectly with intricate mechanisms that made Dwemer engineering look simplistic.

He knew that this women was far more than a wanderer who got lost. Far more and he intended to find out what was going on.

* * *

AN:

Well... This is another idea that suddenly came to my mind. I think Kat is a really unerappreciated character in Halo Fanfiction, so I thought myself: Why not?

Also, to my followers: I made good progress with rewriting the first chapters of "The Last Prussian" over the last two weeks. I will be finished soon.


	2. Chapter 2

When Kat woke up again, her first thought was that she had to pull out those metal splinters in her head. They seriously hurt. Especially, considering that her head bobbed painfully, as she was dragged behind a cluster of four horses.

She didn't move a muscle, just tried to observe and plan from her current perspective. It was a damn mess, but Kat thought the situation was salvageable.

The electric attacks had been a nasty surprise, but revealed an interesting bit of information. Somehow the Goldies could produce enough bio-electric energy, roughly equal to five car-batteries, to shoot lightning from their bare hands and somehow guide it at specific targets. Because screw physics and biology. Kat didn't believe it was Magic in a classical sense. Somehow it had to be scientifically explainable, even if it seemed to contradict everything she knew about Biology. And electronic currents.

She was dragged behind a bunch of horses and it was a tad hilarious how big the furrow she left was. The grin on her face immediately vanished, when she remembered, that sooner or later she had to get the dirt out of her armor. Manually.

In the cart in the middle of the weird convoy, she spotted the captured people. The Blues, the gagged boss and one guy in a potato sack. Nothing of note, exept that they were all human.

At this point, Kat could start to speculate about the nature of the Alien-Human relations and her assumptions were not pretty. The Goldies and Romans seemed to cooperate, but the way the Aliens behaved implied a tilted power dynamic. They didn't seem to be one national structure, their languages and equipment were different, but they sure had a unified command-structure as indicated by the well executed ambush. Based on the fact that the rebels were all human, it seemed that their motivations maybe had a nationalistic or racist background.

Kat's temporary cynical assumption was a Vichy-Situation. It could be the case that the 'Romans' were a sort of puppet government, collaborating with the Aliens. However, the officer seemed far from submissive. Maybe the goldies were the involuntary vassal state? At least the Romans seemed more capable of being an actual Empire, judging from the standartised could be other options, but Kat decided to stick to her plan. She had to initiate contact, simply to have intel that goes beyond observations and speculation. Escape was a possibility any time, so she could take the risk.

From the angle her head was in, she could see a guard of arab ancestry staring at her visor, from the front of the next cart behind her. He was trying to tell if she was awake, that much was clear. Kat knew they'd try to put her down if she made a move, but she needed to lift her head in the direction of the other cart to maybe get her long range sound-amplifier working. Maybe she could eavesdrop the other prisoners, because the guards were silent.

She subtly tried to roll her head and kept an eye on the guard watching her.

Of course, he noticed and put a finger in front of his mouth. The universal sign to be silent.

That was interesting. He knew she was awake and wanted her to pretent he wasn't. A rebel-spy? Possible. Just an empathic man? More likely. But the way he specifically eyed the goldies with suspicion, gave away from whom he wanted to keep her safe. So there was definitively an antagonism between the two groups. Maybe he had orders from the officer, Kat speculated.

A little theory formed in her head. The way she was respectlessly dragged behind those horses, suggested that they assumed she was dead, or pretended like she was. Or they simply couldn't find a way to get her on a carriage. Likely the latter.

The Goldies and Romans were different states, hence they both had interest in her. It seemed like she was conceded to the Romans. Likely because she appeared dead and they couldn't remove her armor. So most likely she was given to the faction that owned the land she was on.

However, the Legionaires knew she was alive, otherwise they would have freaked out. Furthermore, they tried to hide that from he Goldies.

Conclusion: They wanted to initiate contact with her in private.

While that lowered the chance of a Vichy-Situation, it was still very strange that Aliens helped in a human counter-insurgency operation.

Taking advantage, she activated the lomg-range microphone of her helmet to listen to the conversation of the prisoners.

"You damned Stormcloaks. Why did you have to run straight into an Imperial ambush, on cyrodiilic soil at that? If it weren't for you, I'd have stolen that horse and escaped home to Skyrim without anyone getting harmed."

"We needed to do this, the future of Skyrim could have been decided, if we had been able to eliminate General Tullius and the Thalmor Ambassador. I regret nothing.", the blonde one answered.

"What?! You tried to assasinate the military governor? By the Gods, where are they taking us?", the miserable looking guy in the potato sack asked, panicking.

So the officer she saw, was probably the General and Governor. That meant she was known to high authorities already.

Those details were interesting, but Kat quickly redirected her attention at something more important. That big medieval fortress, just down the hill.

It was a solid piece of engineering, but it was clear that there was no modern influence on the estethics at all, thus further reducing the chance of the UNSC being involved somehow. The walls were clearly made with hard physical labour, not machines. Spots where protusions had been manually corrected, were clearly visible.

But Kat couldn't help, still hold on to the theory of everything being some kind of controlled ONI research planet. Even if the locals were oblivious to it. Some very expensive social science study, perhaps? It was ridiculous, but more believable than just shrugging it off as: "Well... Multiverse." That was an actual possibility, but the last one she would believe.

The gates opened well timed and the village came in sight. There were a few civies, but the sight was suddenly blocked when someone threw a blanket over her.

It was really just a cluster of knit-together bloodied blue uniforms, but it served the purpouse of concealing her and blocking her from learning possible routes of escape. Clever bastards.

Kat passively stared at the blood rubbing onto her visor as she was dragged again. She subtly held the blanket in place and waited what the Romans would do next.

* * *

General Tullius jumped off his horse, as soon as the prisoners arrived. First he made sure, that Elenwen and the Thalmor were out of sight. They wanted to rest for a moment before watching the execution. Appearently, the combination of using tremendous amounts of Magica, fighting Stormcloaks and riding an entire night, had taken a toll on them. At the moment, they were in the keep.

He hastily motioned Tarek to get over to him.

"Recruit, take the horses and drag the special prisoner into the stable over there. Take all the help you need.", he whispered and nodded in the direction of the mentioned building.

The soldier hurried to execute his orders and Tullius approached the Captain in charge of the Imperial garrison. She saw him coming and immediately stood at attention.

"Captain, round up and take inventory of the prisoners, then get us a little crowd. I want an audience. And keep the elves off my back.", he ordered. When the women started to grin a bit too enthusiastically, he added: "And don't start with the executions until I am back."

He turned to where a lot of horses were dragging the covered metal-behemoth into a stable. Luckily, that early in the morning, not many residents were awake and appearently none had been watching yet. That was good, because he didn't want tp have rumors spreading about the... whatever it was.

Tullius followed the Imperial soldiers, inside the stable and tried to help pull the ropes.

As soon as, the soldiers got the thing somewhat out of the line of sight, Tullius suddenly kicked the behemoth hard in the side with a metallic 'CLANG'. The soldiers flinched nervously.

"Get up. The Elves aren't watching and there is no way, we can pull you all the way in."

The being got the message clearly and the soldiers all laid their hands on their swords, but didn't draw them. It stood up with an impossible balance and pulled the blanket off. How did it move so fluently with this amount of weight?

In a second, it had assumed a cautious stance, ready to either start running or fighting.

The silence was awkward. Especially, when Tullius only saw the reflection of his face in the blue tinted glass of the helmet. It was unsettling.

"So, what is going on here?", he asked with crossed arms.

"I have no clue, Sir.", a feminine voice answered, to the surprise of everyone present. It took the old officer a few seconds of observing her, to finally pick up the clues. The armor was indeed subtly feminine in shape, but it was completely overshadowed by the masculine bulk and angularity of the design. How could a women possibly lift that? She was no Deadra, otherwise she wouldn't have acted so strangely cooperative when she was surrounded. But she had to be an immensely powerful mage to move this amount of metal. Or a record-breakingly strong Orc woman.

"Where am I?", the women asked, after a bit of silence. On the side Tullius noted that the voice sounded a bit off. Artificial in a way.

"Skyrim. In Fortress Helgen. But you don't know what that means, am I right?"

It was rather obvious, that she didn't. She seemed... Lost. And disoriented.

"No, Sir. So I guess you haven't heard of the 'UNSC'. That complicates things. You represent the Government of Skyrim, I presume?"

The General nodded.

"To a degree. The Imperial Province Skyrim is under military protection at the moment, but civil authority is in the hands of the Jarl. I am Military-Governor Tullius. Responsible for the supression of the ongoing Stormcloak Rebellion. I speak for the Empire."

He paused for a moment because the being seemed lost in thought.

"Where do you come from?", he continued.

"Not from this continent. My ship crashed. I need shelter and asylum, until I can reestablish contact with my superiors."

Tullius hesitated with his answer. Coming from across the great seas, was a claim that he could dismiss out of hand. She was found deep inside the Tamriel landmass, far away from any coast. However, he could tell that her disorientation was sincere. Her actions just seemed so clueless, that Tullius just knew that they were not acted.

Also, that the continent-lie was so dumb, gave it's main message more weight behind it. She genuinely had no idea at all, otherwise she would have made up a believable lie. But it was suspicious that she lied at all.

How she ended up in that forest was the question. Teleportation magic?

"A wise decision to turn yourself to the authorities on this, soldier. If you represent a nation, that we did not yet establish contact with, you are essentially a diplomat. We will arrange an escort that will smuggle you to the Solditute Garrison for questioning. This place is awfully inconvenient.", he explained to the giant.

"But!", Tullius continued, "Before I spill one word about you to my superiors, I want the whole truth. You are lying about something and if you are just a Nord thug in a looted dwarven artifact..."

"My Space Ship got destroyed and my escape-pod fell from the air.", she interrupted, turning the room completely silent. That was unexpected. And no one understood what any of that meant.

"I didn't think you would comprehend the full truth, if I was completely honest about my situation. My apologies, but being dismissed as mad would not have helped me."

Well... She was right on that. Her claims sounded absolutely ridiculous. Considering her controlled articulation, Tullius took her implication of coming from a flying ship seriously. Even though he sort of had the feeling that 'Space' in this case was a synonym for 'Mundus'. Specifically, the void between planets. Some Imperial Scholars used the term 'space' that way, when consulting the Emperor on arcane matters.

"Then you better bring some very convincing evidence. I will see to it that you get an escort to Solditude later.", Tullius replied, reserving his judgement for later. The claims of the women were so extraordinary, that they could be dismissed as ridiculous. But having seen her do quite a few impossible things, Tullius was willing to at least give her the opportunity to present her case.

"Yes, Sir.", she confirmed, almost making Tullius smile. He recognized naturally talented soldiers when he saw them.

"Good. Stay here and keep a low profile. I have matters to attend.", he explained and pointed at a Nord soldier, who looked in his late twenties. "You, soldier, will guard her. The rest of you, get back to your posts. I want a tight security net and don't let the crowd come too close. This has to go smoothly."

He turned to the door, when the armored women hastily said, "Uhm, General..." behind him, accompanied by a weird hissing sound.

Tullius turned his head and gasped in surprise along the other soldiers.

The women was young. A teenager.

"Just to prove that I am really human.", she shyly said, locking her bright blue eyes on him with a small, reassuring, but insecure smile.

It is diffucult to describe the exact thoughts that crossed Tullius' mind that moment, when he met her icy blue stare. The visual information was smelting two contradicting impressions into a blend, that mentally threw him back for a moment. He hesitated a second, then began to calmly process what he saw.

She was a killer. Tullius could see it in her eyes. The way she was observing his reaction, studying him with what he assumed was an intelligence at least equal to his. However, her eyes sometimes faltered, seemingly loosing focus and getting lost in unknown thoughts, before being brought on track by a soldierly mental discipline.

Tullius did not fancy himself a genius in reading people. He was a fairly rusty old man and the ways of civilian interaction were almost alien to him, but he knew soldiers. And he had his experience with child-soldiers.

A dirty truth about warfare in Tamriel was, that children were not spared the horrors of war. Orphans would ocassionally form temporary Raider bands, that tried to survive in the anarchy of conflict zones. Children were often forced to carry supplies behind the front and teenagers were joining Mercenary or Auxillery formations, to realize their dreams of glory. And almost all of these 'child-soldiers' would loose all of their foolish delusions after the first time they saw combat. You could give children weapons, but almost never, could they be made into proper soldiers. Killers, yes, but not good Legionaires. Teenagers were a different matter, but it was hard work.

What made this girl stick out, was that she was talented. She had skills, intelligence and talent, but she was obviously insecure.

Tullius knew, that this girl could kill all people present in seconds. But she willingly submitted herself, even after being attacked.

He got an idea. She needed some kind of authority figure to guide her. Soldiers often did not know what to do, when they had no command structure. If he was to gain her trust, he needed to be clear and precise.

"I see.", he began. "Stay with... what's your name, soldier?"

"Hadvar."

"Stay with him and wait until we find a way to smuggle you put of here. Don't go outside and hide if the elves are looking for you. I must go now, or someone might get suspicious. We'll talk later. And don't make trouble."

Those orders had everything sort of covered, so Tullius left the room.

* * *

Kat was relieved. This went far better than she expected.

Appearently the General and the Elves were in a state of mutual distrust. It was probably just some little joint military venture to crush Insurrectionists.

The new input of context was helpful and mainly, it by now resolved Kat's doubts if this scenarion was 'real'. She knew it was not a coma-dream. Those look different, as she could testify.

The context regarding the combatants and that the Empire was appearently federal in nature gave her some orientation. Especially, on whose good side she wanted to stay. It wasn't much, but a good point to start. She would have to find out and study this new world herself to familiarize with it, but she had a good foothold.

The question was: To do what? Meeting with the Empire and initiating First Contact was an obvious temporary goalpost, but what was her main objective? Having no one to tell her how to do her job was perfectly fine for Kat, but that was implying that there was a mission. She was stranded, with next to no chance to return. There was nothing she could do. The ship was in orbit and there was no way to reach it or deploy a distress beacon.

'Was that the way left-behind Spartan Headhunters felt?', Kat wondered.

At least that General seemed competent and trusting, so he was an excellent starting point to stabilize the situation. Maybe he was a tad too honest for a high-ranking officer, but he seemed soldierly enough that she could trust him at least temporarily. Not that he had the situation under control anyways.

She sat down in the hay with a metallic 'thud' and stared at the ceiling. Waiting usually didn't bother Kat, but this time she had almost no information left to process. At least there was still the issue with the wreckage of the ship.

She remembered that her pod must have had a steep angle of atmospheric entry. The spectrum of angles at which a Drop Pod can survive reentry is narrow. There was not much time for airbrakes planned into the design and the ablative heatshields could only hold for a limited timespan. The Parashutes were the real method of decelleration. Point is, if she could get some info at what angle her capsule went down, she could make a safe guess, at what angle the ship wreck was in orbit at the time of her drop. Most importantly, if it's remaining accelleration would have been sufficient to make an orbit. Maybe it crashed somewhere or maybe it was still up there, far outside her reach.

However even then, there was the possibility of the orbit slowly decaying and eventually... the ship would very likely crash into the ocean.

But should enough parts, or even the whole thing, go down on her continent, she planned to make the most of it. Maybe activate a distress beacon. Or build one.

Finishing her considerations, she noticed the Guard stared at her nervously. When she turned her head his direction, he immediately reached for his sword.

Her collegue Emile would probably have kept freaking the poor man out for the heck of it, but Kat had the tact not to needlessly antagonize people. She was surely not the most social kind of person, but military personel always deserved a degree of respect.

Outside, a crowd was cheering. Appearently some public event. The prisoners were probably being executed. Kat thought it was barbaric to do it in public, but she couldn't really condemn them. It were less enlightened times, due process wasn't a thing yet and the UNSC did the same thing anyways, just more professional.

The cheer was cut short by an eldritch sounding roar, that made Kat jump up. Something was going on. Hadvar was going for the door, irritated as well. "What was that?", he asked to no one in particular.

"You tell me.", Kat answered, making him spin around and go for his sword on reflex.

The standoff was cut short by the crash of something solid impacting a brick-structure somewhere outside, followed by screams.

Hadvar opened the door to reveal a most intimidating sight. A dragon. The Nord and Kat both recoiled in shock and immediately closed the door, when it began spewing fire into the Imperial soldiers.

"By Talos!", the soldier gasped, hearing the screams outside. Kat saw him pale, but he seemed to quickly get his shit together again. He grabbed a round wooden shield that lay in the corner, to get himself a little additional protection.

He noticed Kat observing him and suddenly remembered his real mission.

"Stay with me prisoner. I will get you out of here."

He opened the door and was about to storm out, when Kat grabbed his shoulder forcefully and held him back.

"Where are we going?", she asked, while sticking her head outside. The village was appearently one ring of buildings along the outer wall, with a big tower in the middle. The Dragon was using that tower as a position to set the entire village ablaze, but was concentrating on clearing out the archers on walls and towers. This beast was intelligent.

"The dungeons. We can get in through the barracks. They're on the other side of the village.", he explained impatiently, while Kat was analysing the chaos in front of her. A plan began to form.

"Behind that gate to the left?", she asked, just to confirm her assumptions. "Yes!", answered Hadvar and Kat sprung into action immediately.

While the Dragon wasn't looking, she sprinted towards the wooden carriage in front of the gate. She reached it in less than two seconds and threw herself onto the ground behind it. When she looked back, Hadvar was barely out of the door.

As soon as he reached the cover of the carriage, Kat jumped into running position and bull-rushed the gate. She impacted it with full force, unhinging it and sending it flying accompanied by the screech of twisting metal.

Kat saw that the Imperials were trying to tell if she was an enemy, but kept their focus on the Dragon. It was clear who was the more immediate danger.

The beast did not notice her, luckily. It's attention was focused on another tower, that it was saturating with it's fire-breath.

Thanks to a little pause that the Spartan spent in cover, Hadvar could catch up again. "This way!", he explained, pointing at a still intact stone structure. It wasn't far.

She not so subtly grabbed his lower arm and dragged him behind her while running.

Eventually the Dragon saw them. He stared at them, as if he didn't know what to think of what he saw. ‚Is that thing sapient?', was Kats first thought when the thing spit a fireball towards her, then moved on to other targets. It had looked like the Dragon equivalent of an annoyed handwave.

The Spartan didn't stop running at any point, even though she was just dragging the Legionaire behind her, after he tripped. Dodging the fireball was easy, but some confused, or really stupid, Archers started firing at her.

Almost none hit. She had to take one to protect Hadvar. It barely scratched the paintjob, but Kat was feeling disappointed that she didn't dodge everything perfectly. If that had been plasma, it could have crippled her.

She didn't waste any time and breached into the wooded door of the barracks, using her armoured shoulder as a ram.

She scanned the room for hostiles like her training demanded. It was clear. The room was the armoury and sleeping hall of the guards.

"Room clear.", she reported, out of reflex. Hadvar fell to the ground, looking very pale. The speed of everything had clearly been too much. To the Roman's credit, he got up again quickly, while the Spartan closed the ruined wooden gate as best as she could.

"Do these Dragon attacks happen frequently around here?", Kat asked with a squeaky voice, high on Adrenaline.

"Gods, no! I thought they were just legends... Through the dungeons, we could reach an old backdoor. When the dragon is done here, he could threaten Riverwood, Falkreath and Whiterun. We must warn Jarl Balgruuf, before it's too late."

The Roman walked over towards a rack of weapons. "You can take a sword here, the guards won't miss it. Costs a fortune eksewhere.", he explained and handed Kat one.

"Thanks. And where are my own weapons?", she asked back, but it came out a bit unpolite. Kat understood that swords were expensive in feudal times.

"They were weapons? We stored them with the normal confiscated goods.", Hadvar told surprised and pointed at a crate. The Spartan mag-locked the sword on her back and cracked the box open.

However, they got company. Their talking had caught attention. "Hey, traitor. Stay where you are!", a woman in blue clothes commanded. "We control the dungeons, don't try to follow us."

She was behind a gate, armed with an axe.

Kat calmly locked the weapons onto her armor, while Hadvar tried to reason with the woman. "I don't care what you think, but that Dragon is a threat to all of Skyrim. If you are a patriot, you must let us warn the Jarls!"

"We will do that ourselves. Have fun with the dragon.", she taunted.

Kat took a magazine and a bullet out of her DMR, then patted the Legionaire on the shoulder.

"You were wondering about my weapons?", she asked, then quietly explained: "In the back of this cylinder is an explosive powder. The tip is solid metal."

Hadvar looked at her confused. "If I load this into the chamber inside this device..." She chambered the bullet and with lightning fast reflexes she aimed at the sentry, then pulled the trigger.

BANG! The unfortunate woman's head was splattered all over the wall behind her. Hadvars jaw dropped.

"When I pull the trigger, here on the grip, a mechanism ignites the powder and the metal is propelled through the barrel. A spring in the magazine immediately pushes the next round in and the spent one is ejected.", she explained and handed him her Magnum.

"Same function with this. Your sword and arrows don't hurt me, so I will engage up close. You stay behind and kill everyone who looks like he uses magic.", she explained. "Aim directly, the projectile only starts dropping at fifty meters range. And be conservative with shots, I want them reserved for dangerous targets."

The soldier didn't question that, while the Dragon was directly behind them. They got moving and opened the gate.

A group of Stormcloak soldiers, armed with simple axes, were waiting for them in the first room. Two enemies ambushed Kat from both sides of the door.

She didn't bother with fancy tactics and decided to do this quick. Two Axes glanced off the shoulder panels Kat kicked one enemy in the knee and bashed the others face in with a punch.

The other three got in defensive formation and the Spartan grabbed her new sword. Lacking any knowledge of sword-fighting, she charged. Her weight broke their formation and killed a Stormcloak. A wide and strong swing of the sword killed one enemy, but the blade got stuck in the spine. So the last enemy got her face kicked in when she tried to get up again. The Imperial caught up, pistol in one hand and sword in the other. He was prepared for a fight, but was visibly surprised by the quick victory.

Kat saw how he was preparing to stab the wounded Stormcloak besides the door and said: "Wait!"

She grabbed the rebel, and propped him up, so she held him in place in front of her.

"You can have one exercise shot, before we go further. Don't worry, Stormcloak, you won't feel it."

Hadvar didn't hesitate at the idea, like UNSC Marines would have. This were less civilized times and Kat was pragmatic.

"Last words?", she asked.

Hadvar started to recite a prayer in a language that sounded like German or Danish and the wounded enemy joined in.

He aimed for the head and shot. She felt the bullet impact harmlessly against her armor, after the head of the guy was splattered over the front of her armor.

Hadvar was caught off Guard by the noise and the recoil, but didn't mind the gore.

"I'm sorry I hit you. I didn't expect this thing to be so powerful."

Kat shrugged. "No problem, I knew it would. You are ready?"

"Yes."

They got moving again.

The tunnels led deeper down and they got to a torture room. There were some more Stormcloaks.

The duo had a bit of practice now. Kat stormed in and killed the enemies in melee. Hadvar was happy to stay back and scan for any sign of magic, while the practically invincible Spartan was absorbing the hits.

The room was cleared quickly, but the two torturers were dead and the prisoners freed. Kat spent a moment to look around the room, to see if there is something valueable. On a table she saw a single silver coin and asked: "Do you mind if I take that?"

Hadvar shrugged. "Better us than real looters. We share that, though. You don't find silver Septims every day."

Kat smiled and flipped the heavy coin over to her new partner. He smiled back.

They moved on and one group of enemies later, they reached a natural cave.

Kat was starting to relax a little, as did the Imperial. They reached a slope, when Hadvar suddenly froze in place.

In there were three gigantic spiders. "Oh, no.", he muttered.

The Spartan agreed fully. "What the fuck. I'm not doing this by hand.", she decided. These things looked terrifying. Kat, having played the videogame X-Com once, had the terrible feeling this might be Chrissalids. They shouldn't, but after getting attacked by magic Elves and a Dragon, she was not about to risk it.

She grabbed her DMR and shot all of them in their ugly heads in quick succession.

Hadvar nodded. "Wise tactic. Frostbite Spiders spit poison. It iches on the skin, but if it gets inside the body it's deadly. My father needed to hire a restoration mage to heal him, after a fight with a spider. That costs a lot.", he explained, while the two were climbing down the slope.

"That's rough. Back home, we have spiders too. But they don't get larger than a fist. Not the size of a ..."

She was interrupted by a roar. The shots had attracted attention.

"Not the size of a bear.", she finished, when a very angry looking bear stood in front of them.

Kat was tempted to see what the animal would do, but Hadvar immediately shot it in the head. A reasonable response for a normal human.

She quickly collected a sample of the spider-poison and moved on.

They had warn people about the Dragon.


	3. Chapter 3

The landscape of Skyrim was beautiful.

That was Kat's first thought when the duo left the cave. The air was fresh, the mountains were impressive.

A pristine landscape.

"Wow.", she muttered, causing Hadvar to smile.

"Most visitors from the south say that, when they see our mountains.", he stated. "Usually scares them off, more than anything. Let's go down this road, it leads to my village. From there we can reach Whiterun."

She nodded and followed him.

"So, uhm...", Hadvar stuttered awkwardly, while they walked down the road.  
"You have loads of questions and don't know where to begin?", she asked with a friendly smile and a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah. Those weapons, the armor, your skills... it's all confusing. But where did you come from? Where did Tullius find you?", he asked confidently.

"The full confusing truth is that I am a soldier of the United Nations Space Command, the military government of all of humanity. The part of humanity that lives up there, among all the different stars and planets in the sky. I managed to escape in an emergency capsule to the ground. Then, I woke up in a forest and was captured by a bunch of gold-plated assholes. The ones that also captured the other human prisoners in the blue cloaks.", she explained and asked: "Do you believe me?"

Hadvar made a face of mock offense. "Hey, we Nords are superstitious but not dumb.", he quipped. "Yeah, I sort of believe you. Your claims are pretty wild though. But at the same time, your abilities and gear do count as evidence to a degree. Those are no dwemer artifacts."

"Yeah, they are human constructs. If we rest somewhere, I could take one apart and show you how it works. The production process is highly complex, though.", she explained.

"About those, do you have actual blades? I can't really imagine how combat would work with armies equipped with weapons like these."  
She showed him her bayonet and mounted it on the DMR.  
"Smart idea.", he noted.

"Yeah.", she agreed. "Regarding combat, it is different. Look at this valley we are in, okay? It would take lots of spearmen to create an effective blockade and defensive line stretching from one end to the other. Simply because spearmen have a short range to attack and rely on a tight formation. In a scenario where you can give every soldier his own ranged weapon, things get radically different. Formations become partially counterproductive and seeking cover is a necessity. Also, fewer soldiers can lock down more terrain with their ranged weapons. My army would occupy this place with a series of strongholds in advantageous positions with overlapping fields of vision. And even when an enemy may prove too strong, we have formations in the rear that can throw projectiles indirectly at the enemy. These equivalents of archers are directed by frontline officers, who have devices to communicate instantly with other formations. Summed up, we do war very different, but you would still recognize the basic rules of warfare, if you saw us in action. Things like logistics, terrain, morale and cohesion are very similar for every army of every era."

Hadvar had listened very closely to her explanations. Katherine found that refreshing. Her fellow Spartans were usually bored as hell when she tried to educate them on something. Damn cowboys.

"Interesting. I'm sure General Tullius would love to have a chat with you. But what about magic, how do you integrate that?", he asked.

"Well, we don't have it. Thats by far the weirdest thing about this world. Magic is something completely new to me. My people know of the concept from folklore, but for us magic never happened."

"Wait, that doesn't make sense. How do you know, when you never encountered the arcane?"

"In more primitive times, we just dismissed phenomenon that we couldn't explain as magic. When humanity became more rational and advanced, we investigated things and discovered how they work. And one of our findings was, that shooting lightning out of your hands is not something that can happen. That's why your magic is so strange. I don't have any idea how it works, because it seems to function outside the context of what my people have learned about the universe. So either those goldies produce a stupid amount of bioelectricity, and eat a few tons of food a day to generate it, or it's something we overlooked in half a millenia of extensive research."

"Well, I don't know very much about magic, but I know it can be passed down the bloodline. Some people are born with an affinity for it and with the Elves it is so strong that their entire race are mages. It's not something that comes from within our body. It's power comes from the realm of Gods and we just harness it."

Katarina took a moment to consider her response. She had doubt that people would respond kindly to unfiltered atheism.

"That could be true, yes. The problem is the old issue that the existence of a 'god' and other mystic elements can neither be proven nor disproven. At least we couldn't.", she explained, dodging the question the agnostic way.

"Well, we do have proof of godly interference.", Hadvar contested and pointed at a path that diverged from the road they were on. "The Guardian Stones. Come with me, I'll show you."

They walked to a place that looked like a shrine, with runestones arranged in a circle.

"There are many of these stones all over Tamriel. This place is one of the only assemblies. Many are scattered in the wild and almost everywhere, young men and women do a pilgrimage to these stones when they become old enough. The stones bestow a magical blessing on those that touch them. The different stones have different blessings that help develop certain skillsets faster. I chose the Warrior stone at young age. You can try it.", he explained.

Kat still thought it was probably superstition. But then, she touched the warrior stone. The runes glowed in a bright blue and a beam of light shot into the sky. Where her hand touched the stone, a blue aura swept over her and gave her the ice cold feeling of an adrenaline rush.

"Wow.", she muttered.

Hadvars proud smile at her reaction was adorable. "See?"

"Thanks for showing me this.", she answered, immidiately trying to analyze the stone with her helmet's custom analysis tools. She didn't detect any traces of technology in there, only traces of radiation that were slightly too high. Interesting.

"Ok, let's get moving. We still need to warn people of the Dragon attack."

* * *

When Kat and Hadvar entered his village, they were met with curious or baffled stares.

Her armor was a problem. It drew far too much attention. She needed to get out of it, the moment she found a place where it would not get stolen. Actually, she had doubt someone could do that considering the weight, but even then someone could break stuff by playing around with it.

Hadvar led her to his old home. The house of a blacksmith. He knocked on the door and a rugged, muscular old man opened. "Hadvar. What are you doing here are you on leave?", he asked, then saw all the bloodstains on him and Kat.

"By Talos! What happened? You look like you've lost an argument with a bear. And who is your companion?"

Hadvar quickly answered. "Uncle Alvor, please be quiet. We should discuss this inside. You wouldn't believe what happened in Helgen this morning."

He got out of the doorframe and let them inside, where his wife was standing looking at the guests curiously.

"Take a seat, eat something and tell us what happened.", Alvor offered. Hadvar sat down on the wooden bench.

Kat politely shook her head. "The armor is too heavy, I'm afraid I'd break the bench."

He eyed her armor with an analytical view. The front was still full of brain, blood and skull fragments.

"Short story, a Dragon attacked Helgen and we had to fight the Stormcloak prisoners that used the confusion to break free. And then, we fought a cave bear.", she explained quickly. "I have orders to report to General Tullius as soon as possible. Hadvar is escorting me. But first, we need to warn people that there is a wild dragon."

Alvor looked at her very seriously. She had the tone of a proper military officer, so he probably thought she was actually Hadvars commanding officer.

"A Dragon? They've been gone for centuries.", he contested.

"We've seen him.", Hadvar confirmed. "And I need to escort her back to the General."

Alvor's wife looked at Kat in disbelief. "That is a woman?"

Katarina took her helmet off in response, showing her very young face and shooting the other woman a glare. Kat was an unapologetic tomboy, but being confused for a man kind of hit a nerve.

"Ha. I never thought you have that good a taste in women, Hadvar.", Alvor commented smiling.

All three head present immediately snapped towards him with a scandalised: "WHAT?!"

The awkwardness hung in the room for a while.

"Uhm, Uncle... it's not like that... it's... uhmm... complicated... No! Not that kind of complicated, I mean..."

Kat, herself blushing in a very un-spartan way, coughed and stated: "We should change topic. We need to warn the local authority. I'm new around here, where should we go?"

Alvor still grinning at everyones reaction, answered: "Go upstream, to the north. You can't miss Whiterun. Jarl Balgruuf rules from there. We are his direct subjects, if this Dragon threatens us, he is the man to talk to."

"Thanks.", Kat answered simply. "Can we take some food with us, we need to inform the Jarl as quick as possible."

The smith nodded and handed Hadvar a loaf of bread. "Good luck. And I am proud of you, boy."

"Thanks, Uncle."

* * *

Kat and Hadvar left the house with their cheeks red as tomatoes. They walked out of the village in awkward silence and as soon as they were out of hearing range of the others, both burst into laughter.

They reached the town towards the afternoon, early evening.

On the way, they passed a lot of farms and the walls of the trade center were well visible.

But they encountered something unexpected, along the way: A Giant.

He was standing in a cabbage field, fighting for his life against a group of warriors.

Katarina took a moment to analyse the situation. She considered helping the giant, because at first it looked like he was the victim of bandits. But when she saw the big club in his hands and the smashed farm house, she concluded that it was likely the warriors were mercenaries, protecting the peasants.

Kat knew it was unprofessional, but she was in the mood for a fight.

"Hey, Hadvar. Do you want to stay back or join in?", she asked.

"Hell, no. But I guess, you've made your mind up?"

Kat stormed off immediately, in a rush of youthful excitement. She didn't draw any firearms, she needed some exercise. With a serious foe.

The giant and the mercs saw her coming. One of the swordfighter jumped out of her way and a big club was swung at her.

She dodged it perfectly and simply rammed herself into the giant's knee, breaking it with the force of the impact.

The enemy roared in pain and was forced to kneel. He punched at Kat, who botched her dodge this time. It hurt, hard. The Spartan was bashed into the ground.

In a fit of rage, she stabbed her combat knife into his fist. The giant roared in pain. The enraged Spartan jumped back to her feet. She jumped into the air, onto the head of the enemy. She held onto his ears, dragging his head to the ground with her sheer weight.

Then, she started stabbing his skull. It was dirty, bloody and hard work, but she bashed the entire skull into a messy mix of bone fragments and blood.

She finally calmed down a little. The pain was annoying, but the rush of adrenaline made up for that.

It took her a moment to notice the mercenaries staring at her.

The more mature side of Kat's personality immediately cursed her youthful impulsiveness. She was supposed to be better than that. Beating up a giant was the opposite of staying low profile.

"Damn. That was impressive.", a woman covered in green camo paint commented. "Are you interested in joining the Companions?"

"Are you mercenaries?", she asked simply. It was not really out of any intention to actually join anything, just learn more about the region and it's strategic players.

"Sometimes. You aren't from around here aren't you? The Companions are an ancient guild of warriors. Anyone with enough talent can join. Most of us just like to fight for the thrill of it and being a member makes finding mercenary contracts easier. We have no allegiance, don't worry.", the warrior explained, while Kat got on her feet. "Plus the prestige is of being a member makes people take you serious when you are a woman.", she added.

"I'll think about it.", Kat said simply. "I appreciate a good fight, but I also appreciate anonymity. So I'd be grateful if you all held your mouths if the golden Elves ask questions about mysterious armored strangers. Do we understand each other?"

An elf, with darker skin than the goldies, giggled at that and simply said: "Fuck the Thalmor. If you are an enemy of theirs you did something right. You can always hide under our roof, if they come looking for you."

Kat nodded, smiling under her helmet. "I'll take the offer when I need to. Thanks."

One of the warriors, who looked competely unfazed by the Kat's posturing, provocatively asked: "Hypothetically speaking, how hard did you piss them off and how much money would they pay to get you?"

The others did a lot of 'shut-up-bro' gestures and subtly pointed towards the dead giant.

The warrior was a tall blonde man, with lot's of muscles and a decently handsome face. He didn't seem to have much experience, considering his lack of preparedness and relaxed stance.

Katarina approached him and simply said: "It's admirable not to be intimidated by bragging and posturing, but think realistically. Do you really think you can take me on yourself? Furthermore, those sneaky cunts will most likely reward you with an arrow to the head, for knowing too much. That's the way organisations like them work. And I doubt just selling them knowledge is a particularly honorable way of acting. Do we have an agreement?"

He stoically nodded. "Yes."

Katarina left the scene, but first she took her knife and cut out a tissue sample from the giant's flesh. For science.

Hadvar shook his head disapprovingly, when she met up with him again. "That was not a good idea. You shouldn't have told them anything about the Thalmor. It just gives them ideas."

Katarina nodded, while they walked uphill towards the entrance of the city. "You are right. But I'm a bad liar and now I know who is the danger. The glory hungry buffoon who got his feelings hurt because I 'stole his kill'. We can wait a moment up there on the hill and when the idiot tries to sell me out to the Imperial Patrol that comes down the road, I'm going to kill him."

From a distance, the duo observed how the Companions looted the Giant's various trinkets and cut little trophies off him.

Eventually the blonde guy noticed the Imperials and approached them to the disapproval of his comrades. They left to get their money, without him.

Kat was screwing a silencer on her DMR and wanted to take the shot from the large distance. Suddenly Hadvar intervened: "That won't be necessary. The traitor is as good as dead."

The Spartan looked at him irritated. "Your government works with the Elves. Why would they refuse him?"

Hadvar shook his head. "We should be mortal enemies. Neither side won the war. The peace is all based on a treaty, that is supposed to outlaw the worship of Talos, the God of Mankind. The Imperials thought it was an acceptable price for peace. But we Nords are Talos' people, he was our mortal Emperor before his acention to godhood. And now the Thalmor are here to ensure he cannot be venerated. But there are many believers, like me, who loyally serve the Imperial Legion. No good Imperial would sell you out.", her companion assured.

Katarina nodded, but was going to take the shot anyways. She aimed and...

The Imperials were currently spitting at the stabbed traitor's corpse.

Hadvar chuckled. "Told you so. Let's get to the Jarl."

* * *

Getting into the city was very easy. The guard didn't have the guts to question why an Imperial soldier and a huge woman in blue armor wanted to enter, he just let them through.

The duo walked through the busy trade city, ignoring everything in their hurry. At the entrance to the wealthier district, a more dilligent Guard ordered them to halt.

"State your buisness. The cloud district is not open for soldiers on leave or common sellswords.", he snarled.

Hadvar calmly explained: "Helgen was attacked. I am a courier from the Imperial Legion, sent to inform the Jarl. My companion here is a witness of the battle. We need to pass immediately."

The Guard eyed them wearily. "Where is your letter of authorisation?", he demanded.

"I don't have one. The battle was a disaster, we are the only survivors. We need to speak to the Jarl.", Hadvar reasoned.

The Guard shrugged. "Fair point. You can pass, just don't expect the household guard to believe you."

They moved on again, this time up to the gates of the impressive fortress on top of the mountain.

The stairs were exhausting to climb, but made any potential attacker an easy target for archers. On top, a lone woman clad in high quality armor, stood on guard.

It was surprising for Kat. She had expected that these people would have the same opressive gender hierarchy as medieval Earth.

"State your buisness.", the woman asked in a strong, assertive voice, her hand calmly resting on the grip of her sheathed sword. Katherine feared that the woman took her job seriously. She definitely looked like a well trained soldier, judging by the few little scars on her face and confident stance. Her young age was curious though, judging by her full black hair and young attractive face, she looked like in her late twenties.

"Helgen was attacked by a Dragon and Riverrun is endangered. I am here as a messenger of the Imperial Legion. We need to report to the Jarl personally and request that Whiterun send a formal report to General Tullius, informing him of the presence of her.", Hadvar reported an gestured towards the silent Katherine.

The woman shook her head. "Your request is noted and will be considered by the court stewart. But no audiences with her. She looks like she'll cause trouble. What are your names?"

"Hadvar."

"Katherine B-320."

Kat was not appreciating the suspicion that her body size and huge futuristic armor raised. It was strange, that they were not that openly freaked out about it, though. Almost as if, they thought it was something else that they were familiar with and distrusted for reasons a total foreigner like her didn't know.

The woman nodded and knocked on the door, signalling the guards inside to open it.

When it was open, the woman was surprised by the presence of an elf with dark skin. She immediately did a fist-salute that Katherine recognised as the ancient 'Rotfront' salute of the german communists. Probably a pure coincidence, but that was the only reference point in her memory.

"At ease Lydia. What's going on out here and who is that woman?", the Elf asked in a croaky, weary voice. She looked at Kat, not as a curiosity, but as a straight up menace. A good instinct.

"I survived a Dragon attack on Helgen with soldier Hadvar here. We are here to report to the Jarl.", the Spartan explained. The woman rolled her eyes.

"And who or what are you?", she asked, ignoring the dodge. "For all I know your boy could be a hired deserter and you an assasin. Give me your Imperial seal of authority. Or go away."

"We don't have one and what I am is the reason we need to speak to the Jarl. Hadvar here got accidentally involved in this very complicated situation and the Jarl is the only person who can help sort this out. The short version is, that I need to contact General Tullius in a subtle way and the less you know the better.", Kat explained in her best ONI imitation.

The Elf squinted her red eyes angrily and winked them through. "I am the Jarl's bodyguard. I will stay by his side. One wrong move and I'll feed you to the dogs."

Lydia and the Bodyguard escorted the two visitors inside, to the throne where the ruler of the city and it's surrounding lands sat and ruled. He was deep in discussion with his advisors on matters of state. It seemed the man took his responsibilities seriously. A good sign.

"Jarl, these Imperials request your ear. They have an urgent report.", the Elf announced.

The muscular blonde man on the throne visually inspected the two and ordered: "You may speak."

Hadvar spoke up. "My Lord, we are from the Fortress Helgen. It was attacked by a Dragon, when we were about to execute the captured Jarl Ulfric. We fled the scene together."

"Who are you woman?", the Jarl asked in a polite, yet calculating tone.

"Katherine. Soldier of the United Nations Space Command. Registration number Beta-320. I am stranded in the Empire and have been granted asylum. The specific details are subject to secrecy and I would be obligated to lie or misinform you, to avoid indirect confirmations in the case of a formal questioning. My request is that you contact General Tullius of the Imperial Legion to let him decide if the Empire is ready to share the information I have trusted the General with.", Katherine explained formally and carefully. The man listened with a considerate and thoughtful expression.

"I appreciate your directness. I will send a messenger to Solditude. Proventus? You will do this. Now, what about this Dragon attack? Are you related to it? Are you sure it was a Dragon?"

"A flying monstrosity that burned down a fortress, could accurately be interpreted as being a Dragon, yes. I am not familiar with your realm and not an expert to judge. I believe my presence and the attack were coincidence."

The Jarl nodded again. "This is a grave emergency. We can raise a small force of levies to guard Whiterun, but much of my realm will still be vulnerable. I will need help from the Legion, we cannot afford to pay for a fully mobilised force of levies at the moment."

Suddenly, a man in a robe entered the scene and interjected: "My Lord, I have some committed some time to a private project of mine, researching the history of Dragons. If I had a some manpower commited to it, we might be able to develop effective strategies to counter a Dragon."

"A reasonable idea. A few city guards will be at your disposal. Until relief from the Legion arrives. Then, you can have more people. You two, soldiers, are allowed to stay in the city. As a gesture of hospitality, I decree that the 'Bannered Mare' Tavern shall house you free of charge and Lydia will accompany you as protection. Now go, I will summon you once the General answers."

The two soldiers nodded, turning around and being handed a signed document by the Jarl's clerk.

They left the palace with the mission accomplished.

* * *

The day was nearing the end, when the trio entered the tavern. It was full of people drinking and singing. Kat drew a lot of attention, with a lot of the males childishly and insecurely trying to mock or tease her. Intellectually, Katherine knew that the beginning of feminism was still ages away for these people, but the experience really rubbed the wrong way regardless. Her response was stoic silence, while Lydia was reserving the rooms. But one guy who got a little too pushy, earned a hard slap in the face, followed by more stoic silence and playing puzzle with the scattered fragments of his teeth.

The warrior woman from earlier that day, had a good giggle at that, watching the following awkwardness from her table with a proud smile.

Finally, the three got up to their rooms.

It got a little awkward when Lydia said: "They only have two rooms left..."

Lydia raised an eyebrow at Hadvars blatant flushing and Kat's confused expression.

"Are you two..."

"NO!" "NO!" The answer came simultaneously with a bit of intensity.

The Knight's cheeky grin just grew bigger. "Sure... of course not. I guess you two want some private space...", she giggled and vanished into her room, followed by some more distant giggles.

Kat and Hadvar awkwardly walked into their room, to catch some sleep.


End file.
